How to Sell Used Servers in the UAE

Who this guide is for

This guide is for system administrators, infrastructure engineers and IT managers who are retiring servers, whether that is a handful of tower servers from an office server room or racks of hardware from a data-center refresh. It covers the steps between deciding the servers are no longer needed and handing them over to a buyer. For what a buyer looks at, see selling used servers.

Step 1: Plan the sale around your migration

Servers are usually retired as part of a bigger project: virtualization or consolidation, a move to the cloud, a hardware refresh or a server-room closure. Bring the sale into that project plan early.

Knowing the date each server will be switched off lets you request a valuation in advance and plan the handover around your cutover. It also avoids hardware sitting idle after the migration, losing value while it waits.

Step 2: Document configurations while they are running

A running server can tell you exactly what is inside it. Before switching off, record for each server:

• Model and generation
• Processor model and number of processors
• Installed memory: total and module size
• Drives: number, type and capacity, and the RAID controller
• Network cards and other add-in cards
• Power supplies, and whether rails and bezels are present
• Serial number or service tag, for your own records

Management interfaces and inventory tools can usually export most of this in one go. Once the servers are powered down and stacked, the same information takes far longer to collect.

Step 3: Group identical configurations

Servers are valued configuration by configuration. Ten servers with the same model, processors, memory and drives make one line with a quantity of ten; a server with extra memory goes on its own line.

Keep blade servers and the chassis they sit in together on the list, and note whether each chassis includes its power supplies and management modules. Our guide to preparing an IT asset list covers grouping and condition in more detail.

Step 4: Decide what happens to drives and data

Servers and their RAID arrays can hold large amounts of business and personal data. Decide under your organization's data policy, and any requirements that apply to your sector, whether drives are erased, removed and kept, or handled another way before the servers leave your control. Record what was done for each server.

Then tell prospective buyers whether each configuration is being sold with or without drives, because it changes what is being valued. Drives removed from the servers can be listed separately as loose drives and memory if your policy allows them to be sold.

Step 5: Prepare for de-installation and handover

Agree in writing who does what on the day:

• Who powers down and de-racks the servers, and who disconnects the cabling
• How the equipment is packed or palletized
• Who arranges access to the server room or data center
• When the equipment will be ready, and where it will be collected from

If the servers are in a data center or colocation facility, ask the facility early what it needs before equipment is removed, because its rules can set the earliest possible handover date.

Step 6: Request a valuation

Send your configuration list, ideally as a spreadsheet, with the quantity, condition and location of each group, and whether the servers are still racked. If timing matters, include the switch-off date. Expect follow-up questions about anything the list doesn't cover. When the list is ready, you can request a valuation from ITBuyer UAE.

Step 7: Close out internally

After the sale, update your asset register and configuration records, and file the sale documents alongside the record of how drives were handled. Remove the servers from monitoring, backup jobs and support contracts, so nothing keeps alerting, or billing, for hardware that has gone.